BETFAIR HAS DENIED any allegations of dodgy dealing as a storm of criticism continues to rage over its decision to void €25m worth of winning bets yesterday.
The popular betting exchange voided all in-running bets on the woodiesdiy.com Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown after an “obvious technical fault” allowed eagle-eyed punters to back the second favourite, Voler la Vedette, at mid-race odds of 28/1.
Over €1.9m was successfully matched before the market was frozen, leaving hundreds of punters in limbo as they waited to see if they would be able to cash in on the fancied mare’s four-and-three-quarter length victory.
Betfair immediately opened an investigation and voided the in-running market three hours later when technicians discovered a glitch which had apparently allowed a customer to exceed their exposure limit to the tune of €700m.
In a second statement issued today, the gambling giant apologised once again for the mistake which has seen its share price plummet by 6% in the last 36 hours.
Firstly, we would like to re-iterate that anyone betting in-running in yesterday’s Leopardstown race clearly received a very poor customer service and betting experience. We apologise once again for this.We have identified the issue and replicated it in a test environment last night. A fix was applied overnight, and is now subject to rigorous testing. A further update on this will be made today.
Contrary to some media speculation, we can confirm that all in-running bets on this market would have been voided, had Voler La Vadette won or lost. There was never any chance of the account in question profiting yesterday. The account in question was also immediately suspended after the Leopardstown race.
There has been some criticism from customers, and in the press, that Betfair took too long to void. Quite simply, we made the decision after we were in full possession of the all the facts and input from the relevant internal departments. A decision was then made to void in accordance with our terms and conditions.
We will update when more information is available.
